


You're Not Dead Yet

by InsaneJul



Category: Overwatch (Video Game)
Genre: Character Study, Death, Gen, Heavy Angst, Implied/Referenced Character Death, Memories, Poetry, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Soldiers, War
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-02-01
Updated: 2017-02-01
Packaged: 2018-09-21 06:26:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,735
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/9535790
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/InsaneJul/pseuds/InsaneJul
Summary: Get up, soldier, you're not dead yet.





	

**Author's Note:**

> Found the summary as a prompt online, and it just bugged at me until I wrote it. I wrote this solely about the members of Overwatch when it first began. No ships, just character study galore.

_Get up, soldier, you’re not dead yet._

            The longer you’re in it, the more disgusting the world appears. Until, you assume, you go completely senile and no longer know what’s happening. At least that would be easier. Despite the death you were supposed to have, the death you deserved, you had a torturously long vacation. You left everyone you loved behind. It was all too much. Maybe if you had been stronger—maybe if you had been braver—maybe if you had been smarter—maybe you would not have had to hurt so many. Instead, you rise from the ashes twenty years too late, train your good eye through the rifle’s sights, and pull the trigger like you were born to do.

_Covered in others’ blood, tears, your own sweat._

            Hands stained scarlet, keeping pressure on a wound, a hole in a woman’s eye. There were no tears, but rage in the girl’s eyes. You had no words to heal the wound; your own was raw and gaping. All the people you loved dropped, one after the other, until you could not stay. It seemed unfair that you were still living and all the others—they were younger than you—they are gone. Your armor is heavy, and it causes you to perspire as you wave around your oversized plaything, but it’s all you know how to do, if you want to fix things. If you want to make any difference at all, and that is a way of life you cannot give up just yet.

_For you, the world is moving just too fast_

            Everything has been tinted red since the day you woke up and you weren’t dead. The war has not ended. The war has grown, and you could not even give up the honorable way. No, you are _still here_ , despite everything. The world still needs you—maybe it will never stop needing you—the fresh young soldiers don’t know anything about what you’ve seen, what you’ve done; when they do, they won’t mock your pain anymore. They keep coming, so eager to fight and die for a cause they believe in. There is no way for you to tell them it just isn’t worth it.

_If only we could forget our dark pasts._

            A wink and a tip of the hat isn’t enough to guarantee kindness. There have been enough bartenders to have a good opinion of your manners, but that’s because they don’t know your name. They haven’t been to the post office lately enough to know your face. Maybe you deserve it—you aren’t sure, you haven’t been sure for decades now—but hell if you’ll let it come get you. There’s more work on this earth to be done. There’s so much that was left unfinished, belonging to people you loved. You cannot let their losses be in vain. You cannot let all the lessons you’ve learned, all the love you’ve received, be in vain. So come on, you taunt, you let them chase you, because they’ll never catch a man floating on the wind.

_Get up, soldier, you’re not dead yet,_

            If you were the only one to move on, it makes sense that you’re the only one resenting that you’re back. You have a home—you have a place—you begged the remainder to stay with you, to regain stability, something _resembling_ happiness, but he didn’t listen. It really isn’t fair that you managed to go home when so few did, but what were you supposed to do? How were you supposed to deal with it? The world is still turning, the cogs of machinery, the jolts of electricity down a wire. You were still breathing, and others were not, but there was nothing you could do but keep up with the world. If you hadn’t, where would you be?

_Though this move you may someday regret._

            Too much time has passed since you brought your friends back from the grave for you to still believe you did the right thing. Too much pain have you witnessed, too much anger. But it is far too late now: he still stands by your side, weary but prepared, and the other rages on the other side, cursing your name for the rest of the eternity you bound him to. It would only stop up your courage to acknowledge that it is your fault, so you blame their pain on the instability they could not resolve. You blame it on the chemicals, and the trauma, and the shock. It cannot be that they wanted to die. No one wants to die.

_This is the path you’ve started down,_

            Accepting that he was gone was difficult, but there was no greater pain than knowing you had killed the love of your life. Maybe it would have been better to never know—better to forget everything about who you used to be, how you used to live. But you woke up from a hideous dream only to discover that real life was much more terrifying, and there is only one path to take from there. Only once you accept your own evils will you be happy, so you shed your past life and take on a new one, a better one. One where all that matters is pulling the trigger—so much easier than pleasing a lover, a friend, an acquaintance on the street.  You are no longer afraid of yourself.

_There’s no way you can turn back now._

            You used to spend your summers as a child riding a bike down to the shore, and you’d watch the waves go in and out for hours. The years passed and saw you grow stronger, hone your skills, take the world on with your bare hands. A soldier: wasn’t that what you were built to be, hard-headed yet obedient, caring yet ruthless? Yet after all you gave, your hopes, your dreams, your morals, your love, and even your life, you were denied the most basic of rights. To die would be a kindness, but you cannot. Instead, you kill, and kill, and pretend you are the person whose body decomposes and never comes back. There are no ocean waves to calm you; your bones and tendons go in and out like the water you once loved.

_Get up, soldier, you’re not dead yet,_

            It’s been twenty years and your hair hasn’t grayed. Your skin hasn’t puckered and your energy hasn’t dwindled, your memory hasn’t betrayed you and your hands haven’t twisted. Time is a joke; life is a riddle; death is a fairytale. Years pass and nothing moves you. Years pass and nothing has changed from the first day you reported for duty. Why should you have? It is not your place to watch as everyone you know dies. You are not worthy. You have not changed, and maybe that is why you still cannot make a difference. But nothing will move you to stop. Not even the passage of time.

_Save us from pain the world begets._

            “We were a family, once,” you say as your eyes rest, for the millionth time that day, on the pictures taped to the monitor. “I know,” she says. “I hear you talk about it all the time.” “I’m sorry,” you tell her, but you aren’t sorry enough to stop, and you both know it. You had a family, once; now there is only darkness and loneliness and the faint blue glow of a computer screen. Not even hands to tools, once a calming gift, can save your soul. You watch the news for the millionth time that month and your hands wander toward the button. The world is crumbling apart, and it needs heroes—heroes like you once were, like you once loved. Children are crying, buildings are burning, families are falling apart. You could save it—if only you were given the chance.

_Can you stop this devastating war?_

Only yourself can you control, you are told. You should have been told this since birth, but instead you learned to manipulate and torture, like a good little criminal boy. “Maybe this isn’t what I want,” you said. But it wasn’t that simple—nothing could ever be that simple. This is what he tells you, as well, when you promise you have forgiven his betrayal. He was not in control; maybe it wasn’t quite that simple, but it’s enough. All the pain you have felt is not gone, only felt. You have felt it and you have moved on. Within, there is peace, but without, there is conflict. Since your wounds have been healed, you owe it to the world to heal it as best you can.

_Show us what we’re fighting for._

            Her love and approval were all you craved. You wanted to be just like her, just like her friends. Their life seemed so glamorous and noble, through the eyes of a child. But your eyes have grown up, and you see the world for what it is. You see the coldness, the depravity. The training you went through meant something different to you when you did it than it does now. You have felt the bite of hunger and cold and sorrow and grief, and you were too young, too idealistic, to deserve it. Innocence cannot be preserved forever, not by any means, but you’ll be damned if you let it be forcibly taken like it was from you.

_Get up, soldier, you’re not dead yet._

            So many still live that ought to be dead. So many breathe whose hearts have stopped beating. And for what? What do they give to the world that the new and young cannot? The war does not end. The old soldiers draw in a calming breath, heft their weapons, and lead the fresh ones into battle. No one is allowed to give up. The war does not end. The world does not stop turning. Blood spills and tears flow, flames burning up all that was beautiful. The war does not end. Metal and skin, bullets and plasma. Scientists are pushed to build weapons. Doctors are sent to the front lines. Children are taught to hate. Artists are forced to weep for the dead. Only those who have felt the pain of loss know how to fight, but they are growing in number.

_Someday soon, though, you can bet._

            The war still does not end.

**Author's Note:**

> Here's the full poem:  
> Get up, soldier, you’re not dead yet.  
> Covered in others’ blood, tears, your own sweat.  
> For you, the world is moving just too fast  
> If only we could forget our dark past.  
> Get up, soldier, you’re not dead yet,  
> Though this move you may someday regret.  
> This is the path you’ve started down,  
> There’s no way you can turn back now.  
> Get up, soldier, you’re not dead yet,  
> Save us from pain the world begets.  
> Can you stop this devastating war?  
> Show us what we’re fighting for.  
> Get up, soldier, you’re not dead yet.  
> Someday soon, though, you can bet.
> 
> Yeah, I wrote this myself, so sorry it's shitty. I did make an effort to make it fit with the prose though, which I think I did all right with.


End file.
